6th February 2018 - CFTC and SEC hearing - issues on USDT and Bitfinex, and possibly also about cryptocurrency ETFs and BTC 2.48% Futures trading, about safeguarding investors. Hearing will be broadcast online. https://www.coindesk.com/sec-cftc-chiefs-set-senate-crypto-hearing-next-week/https://www.coindesk.com/cftc-beefs-bitcoin-futures-review-process/

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Clear left shoulder and head formed. I am not going to trade the right shoulder at this time.

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Disclosure. I have moved all funds out of Bitfinex. I am not feeling very comfortable with what is happening or going to happen with Bitfinex now.

I am expecting a multi-month bear market now for BTC.

Reason? Regulation of cryptos, the way that the governments what it to happen, is equivalent to centralization. This takes away the purpose of cryptocurrencies. The blockchain is not completely anonymous.

Once that happens, it will be like you are giving a screwdriver to a person to use it with the caveat that he cannot use it on any screws. Or a knife that does not cut.... you get the point.

Eventually, purpose will be the driving force behind cryptos. Hence ETH, NEO, IOTA and XRP will survive and perform better in the future.

The next 48 hours will be very important for the cryptomarket. The best trader/investor hopes for the best and prepares for the worst.

I wish everyone all the best.

Once again, these are my personal views.

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Copying the moves of JP Morgan and Bank of Trumpistan... ummm... America, Lloyd's bank in UK has banned its credit card users to purchase cryptos. People can use debit cards to buy cryptos.

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We either see a double bottom around 6k, or we go lower to 4.5k to 5.4k support levels today. After that there should be bearish exhaustion and a pullback.

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Someone I know here asked if I am seeing 2014 happening again. My reply was yes. This year so far is no different than 2014.

China is the model and other countries will follow it partially or completely.

In 2014, trading cryptos against RMB was the main issue which Chinese authorities identified would undermine their currency. They interfered in 2014 - start of the bear market. Ross Ulbricht case and fall of Mt Gox acted as catalysts. BTC was associated with illegal drugs trafficking in a lay person's view. BTC fell several times and eventually hit the bottom at around $150-$160 in August 2015.

Since September 2017, China successfully eradicated cryptocurrency trading (to the best that any country can do) and eventually plan to remove all commercial mining.

This time it is even bigger. BTC is now associated with terrorism. Wannacry hacks, exchange hacks, thefts at gunpoint, ? North Korea stealing cryptos and South Korea raising market prices????? This is all in front of us.

The next financial crisis will be a big challenge. Governments can control the price of gold and metals, but cryptos is beyond their reach.

So? This is happening systematically.

1. Regulations.

2. Tax.

2. Credit card bans.

3. Banking regulation - a customer will have to satisfy the banks the money was made legally. In UK, right now it is impossible to get a mortgage if a customer made money from cryptotrading and wants to pay the deposit amount from those profits. Of course if they have become millionaires they can buy the house in cash, but not get a mortgage. Link below:

4. Extreme scrutiny of cryptotrading to avoid money laundering and financial crimes in every manner - currently in progress. SEC and FCTC meeting today, another meeting on 14th February, G20 in March. Worst examples have been created by scammers already. ICOs were examples. Another example is this one.

We are looking at a systematic pattern. Happened in 2014, and is now happening again.

Now I know many people will call this all FUD. Please read this article. This was published by the chief editor of coindesk.

https://www.coindesk.com/just-bad-news-crypto-coin-doesnt-mean-fud/

FUD means Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt based on 'FALSE' information. Since all of the above is true, I don't accept this is FUD. to me, this is going to give us all a great buying opportunity at some point in March.

SEC chairman Jay Clayton has stated that he does not know the reasons that make bitcoin so volatile. Right....

BTC ETF is not going to get approved this year until SEC feels 'comfortable' that BTC is able to fulfil their criteria, i.e. not too much volatility. ;)

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Another potential inverse head and shoulder formation, right shoulder range below 7k, and then back up to 9.5k.

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Source - Cryptowat.ch - 4 hour BTCUSD chart on bitfinex

Sell volume ~269,000 BTC sold
Buy volume ~219,000 bought.

Current market is tradeable, but not investable.

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I like Bitfinex in many ways, excellent user interface, very good volume, in fact highest BTC volume in the market.... BUT

IF THIS IS ARTICLE IS TRUE, especially the conspiracy about the disappearance of 120k BTC on 2nd August 2016, It can lead to an extremely bad outcome for the entire cryptocurrency market worldwide. This article provides an detailed timeline of Tether/Realcoin and Bitfinex.

There are several articles which have been published today in succession on various websites regarding Tether. Now I am not sure if they are 100% true or not, but I do tend to keep myself up-to-date with news more than ever before. The above article is true. I have researched the timeline on google and it all adds up.

The right shoulder turned out to be smaller then anticipated, but anyway.

BTC is likely to face major resistance between the range of $9000 and $9500. Expect some pullback. Another leg down to retest the lows cannot be ruled out at this time.

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ETH chart. Head & Shoulder formation??

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The volume on none of the alts is suggestive of a strong pullback (apart from BCH having a rally today).

I expect another leg down at least. If BTC breaks the previous low, then 4500 is the final support level. If that happens, basically sell every other commodity, house, wife, kids, parents, pets, and whatever, and buy crypto if you can. You can buy them back later with the profits ;)..... Just kidding.

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40%+ bounces on 4 occasions. This is Bitstamp BTCUSD chart by the way. I have entered accurate values in order to avoid any mistakes. I think we will have a second leg though. In the previous updates were the important dates (14-25 February 2018). I am expecting some pullback around that time.

Kommentar:https://foundersgrid.com/bitcoin-price/

This one was published in February 2014. It is very interesting, especially what Vitalik Buterin said about the possible Bitcoin price in 2014-2015. A few were realistic, but apart from 3 or 4, no one was right.

We are seeing a very similar picture at this time.

I think 2018 should be the year of 'cleansing'. All the useless ICOs and scams should be removed. And in my view, every exchange should follow KYC and AML laws so that that there are no further blocks ever of these kinds getting in the way. Regulations will slow down the progress initially, but they will safeguard everyone in the long run. This is my personal view. On the flip side, regulations also mean that cryptos will become semi-centralized. The anonymity will be gone for good.

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Quite possible and perfectly fits with fib levels and also Litepay date. BTC has climbed high enough for a slight pullback now. I think the trend has changed, but I have been wrong before.

This chart also shows the H&S pattern along with Fib levels showing possible rectracement to 50% and will likely continue to go up. Historically after a week of rise, the weekend is when pullbacks occur, and vice versa.

Wish everyone a happy weekend.

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XRPBTC mid-term outlook.... All depends on BTC price in this case.

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On a linear price scale, BTC has hit the channel top and is testing it....

On a log scale however, there is still room for further movement.

HOWEVER, looking at the recovery, BTC has doubled in price since 6th of February 2018, i.e. within 2 weeks! On GDAX, the price went from $5873 to $11775 in two weeks' time.

In terms of news, EU regulators will have a discussion on cryptocurrency regulation next week on Monday the 26th of February 2018.

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Same for BCHUSD chart too... no surprise there as BTG rides on the shoulders of BCH...

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XRPUSD.... w t h ?

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The picture so far. (sorry posted it in the comments section first)

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XRPBTC - history repeating itself? aiming for less than 6000 satoshi?

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Get ready for some 'shorting' action. The overall volume in the market is decreasing gradually and so is the overall marketcap. Apart from the 'usual' pumps and dumps, nothing major happening.

Source: https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/

You can select the 3 month duration on the charts and see the overall volume graph.

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Bitcoin loses $1200+ dollars in less than 2 hours following the Binance exchange related third party API trading apps which resulted in many users alt-coins stashes being sold at market rates. Binance is investigating it as we speak.

On the other hand SEC is likely to send more subpoenas soon to ICOs as well as Token sellers.

And finally, Japanese authorities are considering 'suspending' some exchanges for not following proper safeguarding protocols to protect their customers funds etc.

And on the TA side, BTC needed to touch 8k range for a while. Whereas some TA experts are calling for BTC to touch 5k range.

Let's see where it takes us.

Links for the above articles (yeah I know, I know.... same "coin news" websites, but they do report news and people do act on rumors and news in the cryptoworld... otherwise BTC would never have touched 20k range last year) :)

Additionally, G20 soon. But I think G20 might just turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Once again, March historically has never been a good month for BTC/cryptos (apart from 2013). Let's have the bull race in April :)

Apparently some hackers stole the API codes/hacked the trading API at binance, then sold the users alt coins, using the funds to pump Via coin. This is clear on their twitter page.

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IOTA/USD quick overview...

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Be very careful.... the pattern has been repeating itself. Keep an eye on the RSI and Stochastic.

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Possible double top Adam and Eve pattern leading to $5204.4 mark according to these calculations:

http://thepatternsite.com/scaedt.html

I entered the following values:

What is the highest price in the chart pattern? = 11788

What is the lowest price in the chart pattern? = 6000

What is the highest price for the stock over the last 52 weeks? = 19891

What is the lowest price for the stock over the last 52 weeks? = 888.20

How many shares of stock are outstanding? = 5000000 (approx number of unmined BTCs here, value does not matter - can enter anything to be honest)

Trend start = 0-3 months

Horizontal consolidation region... = Yes

Volume trend = Down

Breakout volume = No

Pullback = Yes

Gaps = No

Market trend = Down

Of course this may not be true, but the market sentiment and overall volume are the keys here. Let's see how this all pans out.

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There is also a possibility of an inverted cup and handle. I could be wrong though, but if it happens it can lead to major losses. So do your own research please and make your own decisions.

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Extreme caution advised at this stage.

Yesterday's congress meeting discussion did not particularly shed a good light on the cryptocurrency market and on top of that the SEC is now targeting cryptocurrency based hedge funds. On the side lines, the politicians who have interest in cryptocurrencies tried to defend the technology, but it is probably not going to be enough to raise the prices back up again.

Now we have G20 summit on Monday the 19th of March 2018. We already know what Germany, France, Japan, and India have to bring to the table on the cryptocurrency agenda. IMF chief wants to 'fight fire with fire' as per reporters.

The main wordings after the G20 meeting which I expect the news websites and news reporters to use will be anti-money laundering, terrorism funding, investor protection (negative), and avoiding over-regulations and protecting the technology (positive). The main issue is this:

Any company can use block chain. The funding can come from the public in the form of ICOs or the company themselves funding the blockchain by taking care of the running costs and expenses internally. This way they can utilize the technology without soaking their feet in the cryptocurrency market. Of course that company's stocks can go higher just based on the use of this technology... or not.

Now comes the 'new money into cryptocurrency market' subject.

Simple scenario: You are a millionaire and have made your millions or thousands by investing in stocks, bonds, properties, or even by doing your regular job. You want to make more money by investing into something. You see a multinational company whose stock value rose by 1000% or more in one year, and then suddenly that value declines to one third of its peak value in less than three successive months. You then see a big country like China expelling that entire companies branch from their land. In the US, you see the SEC and CFTC issuing their warnings to investors about investing money in that company, and then the world governments associate it (even to the slightest possible degree) with terrorism funding. You see world governments talk about regulating it some way.

This is what people are looking at now. This is the picture of the current cryptomarket. The question you need to ask yourself is, would you invest in that company when it is showing signs of a bear market and the outcomes of those SEC and CFTC investigations, regulations and other matters are not clear?

This is what I see. I see a repeat of 2014. The success of 2017 is not going to be replicated that easily in 2018. I think the whole cryptomarket is going to continue on a downtrend for a few months, possible even till mid 2019. All the scammy ICOs will be gone. New rules and regulations will be put in place and high quality ICOs/projects will come into existence. The top tier coins will lose their value and then regain it slowly. AML and KYC laws will become a standard at every exchange. After all measures are put in place for investor protection, smart money will start to come in, and then the whole cycle will repeat again. However, during the next cycle, we will not see a rise that fast and that high. Volatility will gradually decrease. Top projects that actually deliver what they promised will gain popularity and respect.

This is what I think personally. I may be wrong, but so far I have not seen any signs which can change my view of the situation.

With regards to TA, I don't see the bottom yet. BTC can go down to $5200 or even $3500. There will be several bounces up and down.

I was here in 2013 and 2014. The first signs were the alts losing their value. And then gradually BTC followed. We did not have 1500+ coins at that time. Now you can pick any chart, zoom out to 1 day or 1 week scale, and see the head and shoulders or inverted cup and handle pattern. No major exception.

Every move in this market is an opportunity. Use it wisely.

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All the possible (or probable) targets for the next 7 days.

Just my opinion. Could be wrong....

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1st target hit. Still aiming lower, will probably at least hit 2nd target. However, I am pretty certain we will at least see the 5k range i.e $5001 to $5999.

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price to watch. It either goes up after touching 7700-8000 zone, or it continues down to 6k ranges. Keep in mind, G20 is today and tomorrow.

Rising wedge formation... drop incoming. Probably up to 50% retracement to around $8208. Wave B, or wave 4. Then back up towards $10.3k. If BTC goes higher, then it would break the downtrend line.

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Target remains....

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Textbook H&S formation. I could be wrong though.

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Gold vs BTC charts comparison......

Gold:

BTC:

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BTC will likely hit $7800-$8100 region prior to going back up to test 9k resistance one last time.

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The descending red line has been acting as a strong resistance, whereas the ascending green line has been acting as an equally strong support line. However, the daily volume has been dropping significantly over the past few days (apart from the Storm token fiasco at upbit, which led to more than 2.5 billion dollars 24-hour volume on Upbit (South Korean exchange) for a token that has on overall worldwide market cap of 220.5 million dollars!!! Money flow was USD/KRW => BTC/ETH => Storm Token. Then from Storm token back to BTC/ETH and now to USD/KRW.

Keep an eye on the daily overall volume.

This week, expect TRX to have a rally before 31st March (launch of testnet). Next week, it will be another coin. I will update the name of that one later.

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ABC corrective pattern...

Overall medium-term target of $5200 still in place...

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Kommentar:https://elliottwave-forecast.com/elliott-wave-theory/

WXYXZ pattern....

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The ascending trend line joining September 15 low with February 6 low has been broken now.

Hourly time frame chart

Daily time frame

There are many reasons for this bear market continuation.

1. Litepay fiasco - abrupt shutdown a few days ago = LTC down.
2. Impending ETH ASIC miners coming to the market - this will probably result in the ETH price fall and then later a rise. ETH mining will undergo the same 'commercialization' as BTC mining did back in 2013.
3. I am 99.9999% sure there is something going on in Hong Kong in terms of crypto exchange regulations/monitoring. Binance has moved their HQ from Hong Kong. today Bitfinex has announced that they will move their HQ from Hong Kong to either Switzerland or UK.
4. Bittrex removing 82 scammy coins on the 30th of March.

The price of BTC is falling in a staged manner. I think it has something to do with mining costs and difficulty adjustments.

Once again, these are my personal views. Please do your own research.

My targets for BTC at $5.2k, ETH at $300, LTC at $50 remain. However, LTC never fails to amaze me. It might even fall to $20 like Charlie Lee predicted in December 2017 when the price broke $200 barrier for the first time :).

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BTW forgot to mention that two Japanese exchanges are shutting down too.

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If history is to repeat itself then we may see a deep dive tomorrow between 11:00 a.m. GMT and 14:00 p.m. GMT. That coincides with the previous Friday afternoon dips/crashes on the 15th of September 2017, 22nd of December 2017 and 2nd of February 2018. After that we had a few weeks of bullish movements/rallies, although there were some periodic corrections.

Wish everyone best of luck. For my Christian friends, happy easter...

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The so-called 'Death Cross' is complete now.

Bitstamp BTC chart. Day scale.

For basic reference, I prefer the Bitstamp BTCUSD chart. It has the longest available data for the same exchange and the prices do not contain the 'artifacts (manipulations)' we see in other exchanges' charts.

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ETH/USD chart - weekly scale.

Kommentar:https://imgur.com/a/rpCnR

A better indicator.... the overall daily volume and coinmarketcap's entire marketcap value. Also keep an eye on the BTC dominance. We are slowly heading towards the September-November price ranges. ETC, ETH and Dash are there already. LTC, XRP, IOTA, NEO, and others are getting there. BTC dominance has risen to >46%. And once BTC gets to 5k, a full market reset to early November prices will probably be complete.

Please note that I am not a big fan of BCH. I think it has a lot of room to fall still...

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The cost of mining a bitcoin depending on where you live.

https://imgur.com/a/0tqNj

Bangladesh and China are winning :). And all Chinese miners can bring BTC down to 4.7k and still make 50% profit!

ABC takes up back up from any point between $7000-$6500 (Wave B) to $7800 (Wave C).

Or the red path, which will serve as the head and shoulder pattern, taking BTC to $6000 or lower.

Either way, the path will remain bearish. I still hold a medium-term bearish view until the end of July 2018, but there is a very good chance the bear market may extend further.

The driving force for the bullish market in 2017 was based on the following:
- ICOs.
- Segwit implementations.
- Soft and hard fork.
- BTC Futures listing at CBOE and CME.

In 2018, all the major negative news invaded the crypto-space. The small coins still see speculative rises (most recent example - TRX , test-net launch on 31st of March, and as expected post launch 'buy the rumor sell the news' decline, then the current price rise noticed with XVG based on a major 'announcement' due mid-April.

Anyways, coming back to the current chart, I think the ongoing issues/trade war between USA and China is going to have an impact which will also affect the crypto space negatively. Just my opinion.

To be honest, I hold very bearish views for both the crypto space and the stock market. I expect the worst financial crash is about to happen within the next 12-18 months. It is not just the TA, everything from Brexit to Trump, and Trump to trade wars, Trump to Amazon, ongoing issues in the tech world, recent collapse of Carillion, major retail giants going into administration - are the major signs and indicators. It ALWAYS starts like this and leads to multiyear bear market. Only this time, it will rival the great depression.

So invest wisely, and do invest in gold - buy the actual gold bars and keep them safe rather than buying digital gold.

I wish everyone all the happiness in the world, but to me it looks like many will face a hard time.

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A look at LTC, ETH and BCH charts and fib levels. Please note that I am taking the highest point reached after the lows on the 18th of March for reference.

LTC: Crossed the 0.382 fib level and heading down - possible ABC correction, current wave B. Depends on where BTC pushes it though.

ETH: Crossed the 0.236 fib level. Moving mostly with BTC.

BCH: Did not even touch the 0.236 fib level.

Interestingly, both BCH and ETH followed the mini-H&S pattern with BTC. You can look for the BTC pattern yourself ;)

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IOTUSD: Decision time

Self explanatory chart. I have entered values precisely.

Negative outcome reasons:
- BTC in a downtrend
- Lack of extremely impressive positive news. I say this because these days unless we hear very strong positive news, there is no pump (God I miss 2017 bull runs!)

Positive outcome. Now having said the above, there is indeed an expected positive news. Look out for Fujitsu announcement in mid April.

However, IOTA may in fact be forced by the falling BTC to test the support line at $0.6 before it goes up.

I still believe in IOTA... but now I am very interested in radixdlt and am eagerly awaiting their token/coin sale. If you are reading this, then you really should read the white paper on their website. If they deliver what they are saying, then Radix will be able to have an impact on the entire crypto market just like XRP has done so far. It will also give IOTA and XRB/Nano a run for their money.

Notice that the 24-hour volume at Bitfinex is below $300 million now, even when they added 12 new coins yesterday.

After what happened to BTC-e, I would advise extreme caution to anyone keeping any kind of funds (fiat or cryptos) at Bitfinex in light of their history with the 2016 hack. Also worth reading is this article (I previously shared it on the 7th of February here but for anyone who has short-term memory or has not read this before)

I do like Bitfinex and their trading platform/website is THE BEST ONE. Personally I have not had any problems trading there, but then I was not amongst the traders who had their margin trading long orders on the 29th of November or the 22nd of December, and I also did not have any funds at this exchange in 2016 when they were hacked. I did, however, have a very bad experience for months when the FBI shut down BTC-e. I do have very high regards for BTC-e admin staff and Wex, but I am not willing to lose even a cent now or go through the same agony in case anything similar happens to Bitfinex, again....

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Wanted to short EOS at the right time.... but.... Bitfinex would not allow it. Every order that I made, limit or market, was cancelled by the system automatically as soon as the price touched or crossed it.

I have kept proof of those cancellations. Took a screenshot and here it is...

https://imgur.com/a/zVvVS

What tha !

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Comparison with 2014.... (yes, sorry, I am still not feeling very bullish yet)

Breakdown:

2014 section:

Notice the similar 25% rise on the 3rd of March 2014... very similar to the short squeeze that we just saw on the 12th of April 2018. Take a look at the volume (it was very high compared to the overall market cap at that time, taking into account that Bitcoin was not as famous as it is now)

2017-2018 section:

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Of course I could be extremely wrong, but right now I do not see any real fundamental reasons for BTC to go up other than manipulation and greed.

Alts on the other hand will continue to bounce up and down.

2017 was the year of the ICOs.

2018 is going to be the year of 'airdrops'.

And so far every 'main' airdrop has resulted in the 'parent' coin falling down after the airdrop. Recent examples include (but obviously are not limited to) NEO (Ontology), ZCL (BTCP), ETC (CLO), and most recently EOS (EOSDac). Note that the main coin continues to rise right until the moment of the snapshot. And then falls by at least 10% fast and at least down to 50% further slowly. Worst examples are ZCL and ETC.

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Moment of truth.

Very high likelihood that BTC will go up from here to the $10k region.

This is where we are... and by the 15th of May, things are going to get very very interesting... and it is likely that BCH will break the previous ATH on the BCH/BTC pair by then.

Not very sure about the USD price breaking the previous ATH, but it looks like $2k-$3k range is in the cards....

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BTC facing strong resistance. Best strategy is to observe at this time.

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EOS is way overbought imho.... but then who cares? ;)

These are just the gains within the past 24 hours

EOSUSD

EOSBTC

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Final update for this chart. I will publish another one tomorrow as this one has continued with updates long enough....

Today we saw the flash crash of BTC at Bitfinex which shook the alt charts on Bitfinex as well.

BTCUSD outlook.

EOS has had a good rally, but there is still room for further upside along with BTC. ADA is also doing well.

When BTC goes through the ABC pullback, I think we can expect EOS to fall the hardest now.

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Sorry everyone, been very busy at work and other things at home.

BTCUSD chart

There is a chance that it might fall to 8k, or even 7.2k. IF it goes below that, we may be looking at the retest of the support at 6k zone.

The ones to watch are BCH (15th May hard fork), TRX (main-net launch 31st May) and EOS (Main-net launch end of June).

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BTCUSD chart overlook....

Sorry I have been busy with my job interviews and moving between houses hence was unable to update. I will hopefully post another chart over the next few days.

I expect BTc to remain range bound in a downtrend channel for the next few weeks until the mid of July, which is when the next G20 meeting is due to take place. In the meantime, some alts like TRX and EOS may have rallies.

Thanks for sharing!
About: " I do not see any real fundamental reasons for BTC to go up other than manipulation and greed.", there you have 2 good reasons,(btw they're at the base of our economic system, AKA Capitalism)

But then the same greed and manipulation are easier to achieve with smaller and scammy altcoins rather than Bitcoin. Hence the so called 'airdrops'. Avoiding SEC is going to be easier as the coins are 'free!'.